Cryptic Code Stumps Experts

moonboy writes "From the CBSNews.com article: 'The experts who cracked Nazi Germany's secret codes are tackling a 10-letter enigma that has stumped fine minds for more than 250 years - D.O.U.O.S.V.A.V.V.M. Former code-breakers from Britain's World War II intelligence center at Bletchley Park set out this week to decipher a cryptic inscription on an 18th-century monument at an English country estate. Legend says it reveals the location of the Holy Grail. Some believe it is a private message to a deceased beloved. No one knows for sure."

Comments

heh

[DashEvil]

Maybe it just means nothing?

Re:heh

[dasmegabyte]

Or seeing a woman's face in the evening sun. Or meaning in a red wheelbarrow rimmed with rainwater.

The problem isn't metaphor, man. It's superstition. Speculation and imagination are fun, human concepts. It's when they become dogma -- the basis for your life decisions -- that a problem is generated.

10 letters

[detritus`]

Seriously, how much information can be in 10 letters? not to mention this is only 250 years old and the grail went missing over 1000 years ago... sounds like they got punk'd

The Solution....

[Anonymous Coward]

In the original painting on which this monument is based, the letters are on two lines:

-- O.U.O.S.V.A.V.V. --
D. ---------------- M.

Uhh, perhaps it's simply a reference to the line of poetry, "Out of your own sweet vale alicia vanish vanity 'twixt deity and man, thou Shepherdess the way"?

The best possible answer is obvious.

[rufusdufus]

The best possible answer, barring actually finding the holy grail, is quoted in the article.
"Lord Lichfield's grandmother believed it stood for the opening letters of a line of verse: "Out of your own sweet vale Alicia vanish vanity 'twixt deity and man." based on a poem by Anna Seward.

How would it be possible to come up with a better explanation? This woman was of the family and is in the best possition to know. Think about it: what type of answer could satisfy such a short "code" better?

Its like reading Nostradamus: you will find patterns if you look hard enough.

Cryptanalysis requires more data

[omnirealm]

The entropy of the English language is 1.5 bits per character (as an example; other languages have other entropy characteristics). When performing cryptanalysis on ciphertext derived from English plaintext, the cryptographer can determine whether or not he has achieved successful decryption by calculating this entropy on the result. The accuracy of the entropy derivation depends largely on the quantity of the data used to calculate the entropy.

It appears that the message D.O.U.O.S.V.A.V.V.M. does not carry near enough information to derive any meaningful statistical information of the sort. This means pretty much that any potential decryption is as good as any other. In the worst case scenario, this message is the result of a one-time pad, in which case it is completely futile to attempt to decrypt it; even if P is proven to be equal to NP, one-time pads still maintain their security, since all possible decryptions are equally probable. Perhaps some information get be gleaned from the context of the message (the fact that it is either Latin or Greek and based on some historical happening).

In any case, I get the feeling that this particular puzzle is going to be eternally unsolved. There will be plenty of equally feasible decipherments based on defendable premises, but we will never know for sure.

A Publicity Stunt

[polyp2000]

Im more than certain that this is a publicity stunt. A very good one apparently that it should appear on CBS. "As it happens!" I was at Shugborough Hall on this very same day. I was doing a bit-part in a documentary called "All The Queens Cooks". There were a number of people milling around doing press-shoots etc. But to me it seemed like a stunt, to get people to visit the Hall, I think it also some sort of anniversary of the Enigma or Alan Turing round about now too.

They had got the Enigma all layed out on display on a table with red velvet, (ie for show). In reality if the real purpose of this excersize was to crack those codes dont you think they would have used a laptop with an enigma simulator/code cracking program? So while they may be attempting to crack that code I think there were also some alterior motives on their mind, like getting a bit of publicity for the tourist trade!

nick ...